


Where Your Heart is, there is Your Treasure

by Somedeepmystery



Category: PotC
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-29
Updated: 2007-05-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 23:38:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/374644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somedeepmystery/pseuds/Somedeepmystery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years hold a lot of days, this is merely one of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where Your Heart is, there is Your Treasure

~

The house was small but adequate, set back from the shore with a protected view of the western horizon. She didn’t mind that it was small; it was easy to keep warm, easy to keep clean. It fulfilled a need and that was all she cared about. But its smallness led to other incidences of convenience as well, for example, despite being cluttered with keepsakes and tokens she was able to notice right away that the chest was missing.

But maybe that was because her eye always drifted to it without conscious thought, and as she stepped through the door with a basket of onions that she had pulled from the hillside, they did just that, offering a greeting from her heart. Only, it wasn’t there to be greeted.

Immediate panic set in, washing over her like a rogue wave, and she dropped the basket on the edge of the table, not bothering to stop when it fell and the fresh, dirt covered onions toppled to the floor. “Will? Will where are you!” she called out running immediately to the small room they shared, which was his second favorite place to play. That panic in her gut kicked up about twelve notches when she found it seemingly empty. She tossed back the bed covers and yanked open the closet door.

They’d come. They’d come to take the chest and they’d taken him as well. Her hand moved instinctively to her throat trying to hold back the clutch of fear she felt tightening around her neck. She knew she needed to stay calm in the face of it, knew she was well able, but this was more than her life at stake, this was her whole world. “William Weatherby Turner! Will, you need to answer mummy when she calls you.” She climbed to her feet after looking under the bed and hurried to the door, running around to the back of the house continuing to call his name.

He looked up innocently from where he was playing in the half barrel of water she kept there, his small, hand-carved pirate ships clutched in his grimy hands.

“Will! Why didn’t you answer me? You frightened me nearly to death!” She fell to her knees in front of him and took his shoulders in hand, turning him toward her. “Who was here? Did you see anyone? Where is Daddy’s chest?”

“It’s the treasure, Mummy, Unca Jack said a pirate must keep him’s treasure hidden…” Elizabeth’s mouth fell open in shock even as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a piece of parchment. “I made a map.” She grabbed it, startling him with her abruptness and looked it over. He had scrawled upon it with a piece of charcoal, drawing a large X surrounded by what she knew to be his version of trees and a dozen squiggling lines meant to imitate writing. She looked around, as if she could somehow orient herself to his map, that same panic that had ebbed a bit at seeing her son alive and well, was rushing back now in full force.

“What is this Will? It’s rubbish. I told you never to touch that chest! Why don’t you listen? Tell me where you buried it! Tell me this very instant!” She shook him slightly by his shoulders and he just looked back at her in complete shock, his wide brown eye staring back at her as they filled with tears that soon rolled down his plump cheeks. He took a shuddering breath and began to cry in earnest.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, she’d lost her temper and she knew it. The problem was all that panic was still raging inside her. She knew he’d tried to do a good thing, to help her, and she should’ve been more diplomatic. He hadn’t done it to make her angry. Now she fought her warring emotions, breathing them out with another breath, she pulled her son to her chest and soothed him.

“I’m sorry love, I shouldn’t have shouted, but this treasure we don’t bury, this is a treasure we need to keep very close, and I really must find it.”

Will leaned back from her arms and wiped at his eyes, leaving muddy streaks across his face and she couldn’t help but smile at him. “I member where it is mummy, let me look at my map.”

He took the map and held it up squinting at it in the light. His face was of utmost seriousness and she felt a tightening in her heart a he nodded toward the wood, a hint of his father in his brow and his manner. “This way,” he said and she followed him into the trees, taking his small hand when he offered it.

It was only a moment before they came upon the fresh turned dirt and together they shoveled it aside with their hands until the top of the chest was revealed. She pulled it out, setting it in her lap to brush away the clinging soil before bringing it to her ear to listen to the faithful beating from within. She set it down and smiled at her son, wiping away a tear of her own and leaving a streak to match his.

“What’s wrong mum? Why are you’s crying?”

“Oh my little love, because I’m happy and sad at the same time, like I always am when I hold this chest.” Young Will just looked back at her in that tolerant way children have when adults speak nonsense. She smiled and sighed, relaxing finally. All was well, at least for now. “William dear, just how old are you now?” she asked, as if she didn’t cross the days off one by one on the fabric of her heart.

“This many,” he answered holding up four grubby and still slightly baby-like fingers.

“That many? Already? My how the time flies.” She smiled and reached out to tousle his dark hair. “I think we should make a visit to port, what say you Mr. Turner?”

He leapt to his feet. “Hooray! Will we see Mr. Gibbs? Will I get a new ship?”

“Oh!” she said pulling herself to her feet. “I intend to get you a very large ship.” He cheered and hurried back toward the house waving his hands in the air, and she followed after him, the black chest clutched against her belly.

The path back to their cottage broke through the trees for a moment and she turned her eye to the horizon, watching the orb of the sun as it touched the sea.

“That’s one less.”

 

~  



End file.
